By Dick Stark

I excerpted the following from a government proposal we submitted that required a comparison between Remedy and Remedy OnDemand.  The answer might surprise you…

To excel at BSM, Big Government Agency (BGA) must rely heavily on out-of-the-box BSM tools. This space is quickly being disrupted by software-as-a-service options from existing and new competition. But is SaaS actually cheaper, and is the higher customer satisfaction due to the SaaS delivery model or to new and better fitting solutions such as Remedy OnDemand (RoD) from BMC?  The big question:  Is SaaS the answer to BGA’s perceived on-premise tool woes?

Organizations like BGA that have not kept pace with Remedy’s current software version, and not made the investment in continual process improvement typically have complaints such as:

• “Is too costly to run.”
• “Too much time is required to move between versions.”
• “Is complicated and cumbersome to use.”
• “Is a poor fit to operational and organizational requirements.”
• “Is too heavily customized.”

So should BGA blame BMC and more specifically, Remedy?  No, Remedy is not perfect, but the entire ecosystem is responsible, from consultancies, systems integrators, administrators, and IT departments. Many Remedy users do not use Remedy to its maximum potential due to a number of issues such as day-to-day firefighting.  It is like having a Ferrari parked in a garage.

BMC Remedy is offered in both a SaaS basis, RoD or an on-Premise basis.  Although the functionality of both products is identical, the delivery model is not.  Remedy requires dedicated servers operating system and database software. The pricing model is perpetual with annual maintenance pricing. RoD is SaaS based meaning that the application is hosted and managed in a secure data center.  Software upgrades are provided by BMC, and as long as customizations and integrations are standard, the upgrade process is quick. The pricing model is based upon yearly subscription payments.

RightStar’s proposal documented a case study that resembled BGA.  That case study proposed two solutions:  200 users of Remedy on-Premise and 200 users of RoD. BGA’s purpose is to acquire, implement, and maintain complete and integrated Business Service Management (BSM) architecture solutions of processes, tools, and professional services.

The big question:  Is SaaS the answer to BGA’s perceived on-premise tool woes? The answer is a resounding no.  As a cost analysis shows, SaaS is not actually cheaper when all factors are considered over a seven year lifecycle. And when SaaS based security concerns are examined, the risk for a SaaS based solution hosted at a non-government data center is just too great.  To excel at BSM, BGA can rely heavily on out-of-the-box BMC Remedy on-premise ITSM. BMC is the market leader in this space and RightStar is BMC’s #1 public sector solutions provider.  This will significantly lower the risk of project success with the ultimate goals of better, faster, and cheaper.  The end result– improved staff productivity, heightened quality of services, and reduced operational costs should make BGA a model for BSM within BGA and other government organizations.